Alwaght- ISIS Takfiri terrorists would have toppled the Syrian government if Iran had not provided assistance to Damascus, the Commander of the Quds Force of Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Major General Qassem Soleimani has revealed.
Soleimani has been quoted by Iran’s official news agency IRNA, as saying during a speech in the holy city of Qom on Monday that, “If the Islamic Republic did not help the Syrian government’s resistance, today ISIS would be ruling all over the country.”
Major Generali Soleimani also praised Iranian military advisers who had given their lives in the battle against terrorism in Syria.
Iran maintains military advisers in Syria, where the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is fighting an array of foreign-backed militant forces, including, but not limited to, those of the ISIS terrorist group.
Syria has been gripped by foreign-backed militancy since March 2011. UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura estimates that over 400,000 people have been killed in the conflict, which has furthermore displaced over half of Syria’s pre-war population of about 23 million.
The Iranian advisory presence comes as part of defense agreements reached between the governments of Iran and Syria. Iran does not have regular troops on the ground in the Arab country.
Russia, another Syrian ally, has been conducting an aerial campaign against terrorist groups in Syria since September 2015. The bombing campaign had been requested by the Syrian government.
Since March 2011, the US and its regional allies, in particular Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, have been conducting a proxy war by supporting terrorists to topple the Syrian government.
Nearly 500,000 people have so far lost their lives in the Syrian conflict with almost two million injured and millions of others displaced.
